Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM) Practice Exam 2026 - Free CGFM Practice Questions and Study Guide

Data analysis primarily aims to summarize data in a way that extracts useful information from it. This process involves examining, cleaning, and modeling data with the goal of highlighting useful information, drawing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. By summarizing data, analysts can identify trends, patterns, and insights that inform strategy and performance assessment in government financial management.

While creating visual dashboards can be an outcome of data analysis, the main thrust of data analysis itself is not limited to visualization but rather to provide clarity and actionable insights from the data. Selecting random data points for review does not capture the intention behind thorough data analysis, which is to derive meaningful conclusions rather than just conducting arbitrary reviews. Transforming data into raw numbers does not reflect the goal of data analysis, which seeks to provide processed information that can aid in understanding and decision-making rather than merely presenting numbers without context.